effingunicorns's reviews
376 reviews

And so I find myself all caught up on the Guardians chapter books. Sadly, there was no direct appearance by everybody's favorite winter butthead, but between what we know about his own powers and what we learn about Mother Nature's, the cameo seemed fairly obvious to me. The backstory for Mother Nature and Pitch was interesting, if heartbreaking, and kind of hammered home the fictional convention to always confirm there's a body: if someone's not actually dead, checking can prevent a whole mess of future pain.

This book felt more like the lull before everything goes nuts at the climax of the story, but we have a while to wait until the next one is out so I guess we'll see then.

It's become kind of an established thing that a lot of high fantasy is based on the world from a European perspective. This book takes that a step farther and imagines such a world if it got to a level of technology (and quite coincidentally, a social setup) reminiscent of Jane Austen, with people who would--naturally--study dragons the same way scientists in our world began to study more normal animals. Combined it makes for a surprisingly easy read, although now I've had a little time to think about it I wish there had been even more dragon encounters than we actually got; there were, admittedly, a decent number, I just wanted more. Maybe in the next book.

I loved the cameos from the bunyips and rainbow serpents, but for the most part this book felt like necessary but tedious setup for what looks to be future epic history-changing events. I am so stoked for the next book, however distant it may be.